A novel way to massively improve the SQ of computer audio streaming

[soares]

On 04/05/2018 at 5:02 PM, Hardinge said:

Hi all, and thanks @austinpop for the illuminating thread. I'm building my first proper system and, thanks mainly to this thread, am now vastly more focused on everything preceding my dac. My budget is mid-range at this point and I was hoping to get suggestions on a pre-dac-chain for <US$4,500. I had expected that a Zen MkII STD would be in that chain?? So that would leave US$2,000 for the rest, but what should that look like?

 

As background I play sub 24/192 flac and mqa through roon and currently feeding an oppo 205 as dac. Many thanks!

Have your Oppo 205 moded or buy an ultrarendu + an Sbooster. The sound of your system will probably improve a lot. At least it did in mine. I am currently using an i5 transporter + ultrarendu & Sbooster + an Oppo 205 as Dac. I am planning to buy a qutest and most probably to upgrade my Oppo (internal LPS + clock). Cheers. J.

[Ralf11]

2 hours ago, soares said:

Have your Oppo 205 moded or buy an ultrarendu + an Sbooster. The sound of your system will probably improve a lot. At least it did in mine. I am currently using an i5 transporter + ultrarendu & Sbooster + an Oppo 205 as Dac. I am planning to buy a qutest and most probably to upgrade my Oppo (internal LPS + clock). Cheers. J.

 

what interface are you using for the Oppo-205?  is it USB?  if so, is there any isolation going into the 205?

[austinpop]

5 hours ago, jean-michel6 said:

Is there a problem with this thread ? Since I see no activity since last Friday ?

 

5 hours ago, tims said:

Yes, I'm also missing my morning fix of "novel"

 

Since this “novel” has now turned into the length of War & Peace, I guess a breather now and then is inevitable!

 

On 5/4/2018 at 4:02 PM, Hardinge said:

Hi all, and thanks @austinpop for the illuminating thread. I'm building my first proper system and, thanks mainly to this thread, am now vastly more focused on everything preceding my dac. My budget is mid-range at this point and I was hoping to get suggestions on a pre-dac-chain for <US$4,500. I had expected that a Zen MkII STD would be in that chain?? So that would leave US$2,000 for the rest, but what should that look like?

 

As background I play sub 24/192 flac and mqa through roon and currently feeding an oppo 205 as dac. Many thanks!

 

4 hours ago, soares said:

Have your Oppo 205 moded or buy an ultrarendu + an Sbooster. The sound of your system will probably improve a lot. At least it did in mine. I am currently using an i5 transporter + ultrarendu & Sbooster + an Oppo 205 as Dac. I am planning to buy a qutest and most probably to upgrade my Oppo (internal LPS + clock). Cheers. J.

 

That’s certainly a very compelling option:

1. Zen Mk II Std music server 

2. Linear Solutions OCXO switch 

3. Send your Oppo 205 to get the PSU and OCXO mod.

 

i don’t have personal experience with these pieces, but based on reports, it may be great bang for the buck.

[Johnseye]

My Holo Spring L3 arrived today.  Upsampling with Roon to DSD512 through to my sMS.  Holding my opinions for the moment.

My motherboard and sCLK will arrive from SOtM tomorrow.  Once that's installed I can pull out the sMS and back to my baseline.  Then the REF10.  Tomorrow night will be fun.  I should have a review to post in the next week or two as everything settles in.

[austinpop]

22 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

My Holo Spring L3 arrived today.  Upsampling with Roon to DSD512 through to my sMS.  Holding my opinions for the moment.

My motherboard and sCLK will arrive from SOtM tomorrow.  Once that's installed I can pull out the sMS and back to my baseline.  Then the REF10.  Tomorrow night will be fun.  I should have a review to post in the next week or two as everything settles in.

 

Sweet!

 

Give it all at least 2 weeks of burn in before making any comparisons,  if you have the patience.

[Forehaven]

1 hour ago, Johnseye said:

My Holo Spring L3 arrived today.  Upsampling with Roon to DSD512 through to my sMS.  Holding my opinions for the moment.

My motherboard and sCLK will arrive from SOtM tomorrow.  Once that's installed I can pull out the sMS and back to my baseline.  Then the REF10.  Tomorrow night will be fun.  I should have a review to post in the next week or two as everything settles in.

Congrats John!  I hope you like it as much  as I enjoy mine!  Rajiv is right, it takes a ton of time to break in.  Plus, a new MB  and the Ref 10 as well?  Awesome!  

[lmitche]

1 hour ago, Johnseye said:

My Holo Spring L3 arrived today.  Upsampling with Roon to DSD512 through to my sMS.  Holding my opinions for the moment.

My motherboard and sCLK will arrive from SOtM tomorrow.  Once that's installed I can pull out the sMS and back to my baseline.  Then the REF10.  Tomorrow night will be fun.  I should have a review to post in the next week or two as everything settles in.

Roon not Hqplayer for dsd512?

[Superdad]

4 hours ago, Johnseye said:

My Holo Spring L3 arrived today.

 

I’ve had a Spring L3 for at least 20 months.  It took 6 weeks of playing before I thought it was anything special (for a long time even my old base version Geek Pulse had better bass than the Spring).  But then it really started to open up.  So do give it time. 

[soares]

11 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

 

what interface are you using for the Oppo-205?  is it USB?  if so, is there any isolation going into the 205?

Yes, it's USB and the ultrarendu provides all the isolation you need. I also use 2 TP links between the router and the i5. You can look at Audiostream for the scheme.

[Johnseye]

10 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

Sweet!

 

Give it all at least 2 weeks of burn in before making any comparisons,  if you have the patience.

 

Yes, it will be hard to hold my opinions back.  I suspect I'll be making some preliminary findings in a few days to a week, then follow that up with a more detailed, established review.

 

9 hours ago, Forehaven said:

Congrats John!  I hope you like it as much  as I enjoy mine!  Rajiv is right, it takes a ton of time to break in.  Plus, a new MB  and the Ref 10 as well?  Awesome!  

 

Yes, a number of changes.  I didn't plan for them to all hit at once, but the timing worked out that way.  It will make things a little more difficult to separate from comparisons to my previous system.  The motherboard with Optane comparison will be especially hard as it will be from 3 week old memories.  I knew my previous system well enough for some kind of judgement, but a side by side at a minimum would have been better.

 

The other day you were asking about my phonostage.  It is/was a Simaudio Moon 110LP.  I love the sound from it, and some call it a giant killer.  When I shipped my motherboard out I tried using the SR7 to power it.  It worked well and opened/cleaned the sound up.  Then I foolishly tried the sPS-500 on it.  Off by < 1v.  Fried the Moon.  I'm getting it fixed, but since then I've been auditioning new phono pres.  The Manley Chinook is an excellent piece if you like tubes.  Beautiful sweet sound.  I just couldn't get over the additional noise, as little as it was.  Tube phono pres can be very noisy.  I also listened to a Rega Aria and Sutherland 20/20.  I think I've settled on the Sutherland.  It's SS, very quiet and smooth.  It almost has a tube like sound.  Separate power supplies for each channel and lots of noise filtering.

 

8 hours ago, lmitche said:

Roon not Hqplayer for dsd512?

 

It was quick and dirty as I didn't have it installed on my office PC.  HQPlayer will be used today when I get the new motherboard installed.

 

5 hours ago, Superdad said:

 

I’ve had a Spring L3 for at least 20 months.  It took 6 weeks of playing before I thought it was anything special (for a long time even my old base version Geek Pulse had better bass than the Spring).  But then it really started to open up.  So do give it time. 

 

Thanks, 6 weeks.  Good to know.

 

[Forehaven]

Too bad about the Sim 110lp, but a nice excuse to buy a new one lol  That Sutherland is a nice piece!  You can't go wrong with that pre...have you thought about the new Gold Note PH10?  I heard it at Axpona, given show conditions, it was  dead quiet.  Just a thought

[Johnseye]

24 minutes ago, Forehaven said:

Too bad about the Sim 110lp, but a nice excuse to buy a new one lol  That Sutherland is a nice piece!  You can't go wrong with that pre...have you thought about the new Gold Note PH10?  I heard it at Axpona, given show conditions, it was  dead quiet.  Just a thought

 

Thanks, I reached out to their US distributor.

[elan120]

3 hours ago, Johnseye said:

It was quick and dirty as I didn't have it installed on my office PC.  HQPlayer will be used today when I get the new motherboard installed.

Looking forward to learn more on your findings.  Which new MB (and processor) you are getting back from SOtM?  I am running HQPlayer with DSD512 output on my PC that can only go up to *-2s filters with i7700K, and would like to find a good MB/processor to send to SOtM to have clocks modified.

[Summit]

10 hours ago, Superdad said:

 

I’ve had a Spring L3 for at least 20 months.  It took 6 weeks of playing before I thought it was anything special (for a long time even my old base version Geek Pulse had better bass than the Spring).  But then it really started to open up.  So do give it time. 

 

Do you play NOS or with OS?

[Hardinge]

On 5/10/2018 at 7:25 AM, soares said:

Have your Oppo 205 moded or buy an ultrarendu + an Sbooster. The sound of your system will probably improve a lot. At least it did in mine. I am currently using an i5 transporter + ultrarendu & Sbooster + an Oppo 205 as Dac. I am planning to buy a qutest and most probably to upgrade my Oppo (internal LPS + clock). Cheers. J.

 

22 hours ago, austinpop said:

3. Send your Oppo 205 to get the PSU and OCXO mod.

 

Thanks guys. There seems to be a lot of mod options. And some i can ship to Australia and instal mysefl so that's great!

[austinpop]

24 minutes ago, Hardinge said:

 

 

Thanks guys. There seems to be a lot of mod options. And some i can ship to Australia and instal mysefl so that's great!

 

I believe Roy got the Complete mod from here: http://www.oppomod.com/

[Hardinge]

7 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

I believe Roy got the Complete mod from here: http://www.oppomod.com/

Thanks i just found them. My solder skills are minimal so at least the PSU is a done deal. Will find a local tech for the clock addition. Many thanks again!

[seeteeyou]

On 4/30/2018 at 1:59 AM, austinpop said:

All that said, if Chord come out with an "affordable" Mscaler and DAC (TT2?) combo, I'd be interested to see how the Toslink idea pans out. I suppose one can continue to use USB for the DSD and DXD formats.

 

No standalone M-Scaler yet but here's TT 2 for 4,000 quids with balanced outputs (a must-have because single-ended outputs of LAu kinda suck) for your Liquid Gold, featuring dual Toslink inputs and accepting 12V DC power

 

https://www.whathifi.com/news/chord-unveils-hugo-tt-2-dacheadphone-amp-high-end-2018

http://chordelectronics.co.uk/product/hugott2/

Quote

1.5m 12v Switching power supply

 

Not sure why but it didn't really look like 12V to me

 

[LTG2010]

15 minutes ago, seeteeyou said:

Not sure why but it didn't really look like 12V to me

Looks like its linear powered at 9.3V with internal Supercaps and 18V charger/ energiser ?

[Superdad]

21 hours ago, Summit said:

Do you play NOS or with OS?

 

Spring always in NOS mode—but always sent from HQ Player either 384kHz PCM or DSD (I often convert PCM to DSD128 or 256–can’t make it to 512–but for my ripped SACDs I enjoy just sending the native DSD64.)

I also use a @scan80269-modified Singxer SU-1 (powered by an UltraCap supply) to send I2S over LVDS/HDMI to the Spring.

[Johnseye]

On 5/10/2018 at 12:16 PM, elan120 said:

Looking forward to learn more on your findings.  Which new MB (and processor) you are getting back from SOtM?  I am running HQPlayer with DSD512 output on my PC that can only go up to *-2s filters with i7700K, and would like to find a good MB/processor to send to SOtM to have clocks modified.

 

2 hours ago, Superdad said:

 

Spring always in NOS mode—but always sent from HQ Player either 384kHz PCM or DSD (I often convert PCM to DSD128 or 256–can’t make it to 512–but for my ripped SACDs I enjoy just sending the native DSD64.)

I also use a @scan80269-modified Singxer SU-1 (powered by an UltraCap supply) to send I2S over LVDS/HDMI to the Spring.

 

ASRock Z270M-ITX/ac.  It comes with Nichicon Fine Gold Series Audio Caps, although I maybe foolishly had SOtM replace the caps with their own.  May won't reveal whose caps they use other than they are a South Korean mfg.  SOtM replaced the system @24mhz and dual LAN @25mhz clocks.  The other two on the sCLK are for the tXUSBexp and tXUSBultra.

 

One thing I found out after receiving my board yesterday is that a fan is necessary.  I tried using the passive heatsink approach and was having numerous issues.  Took me a while to figure out that even though the heatsink wasn't hot, it wasn't doing the job.  The stock Intel fan is a loud piece of trash.  I should have a Noctua fan on it tonight.  I was really hoping to avoid that.

 

The processor I'm using is an i7700T.  This is my first effort at upsampling to DSD512 and I have need some education on how to get PCM to upsample to DSD with HQPlayer on the Spring, not to mention how to dial in the upsampling.  It may turn out I can't get this proc to do it.  @lmitche, any advice other than what's in the manual?

 

@scan80269, what do you modify on the SU-1?  Are you able to modify it for connectivity to a master clock?

[elan120]

8 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

 

 

ASRock Z270M-ITX/ac.  It comes with Nichicon Fine Gold Series Audio Caps, although I maybe foolishly had SOtM replace the caps with their own.  May won't reveal whose caps they use other than they are a South Korean mfg.  SOtM replaced the system @24mhz and dual LAN @25mhz clocks.  The other two on the sCLK are for the tXUSBexp and tXUSBultra.

 

One thing I found out after receiving my board yesterday is that a fan is necessary.  I tried using the passive heatsink approach and was having numerous issues.  Took me a while to figure out that even though the heatsink wasn't hot, it wasn't doing the job.  The stock Intel fan is a loud piece of trash.  I should have a Noctua fan on it tonight.  I was really hoping to avoid that.

 

The processor I'm using is an i7700T.  This is my first effort at upsampling to DSD512 and I have need some education on how to get PCM to upsample to DSD with HQPlayer on the Spring, not to mention how to dial in the upsampling.  It may turn out I can't get this proc to do it.  @lmitche, any advice other than what's in the manual?

 

@scan80269, what do you modify on the SU-1?  Are you able to modify it for connectivity to a master clock?

I believe i7700T will have no problem upsample to DSD512 with *-2S filters, but can't do non *-2S filters.  The setting I use to upsample both PCM and DSD files to DSD512 is on the bottom, but not necessary have to have CUDA offload engaged.

 

Are you having sCLK-EX board installed inside of your SU-1 (I assume you are using I2S out from SU-1) or externally connected?

[Johnseye]

8 minutes ago, elan120 said:

I believe i7700T will have no problem upsample to DSD512 with *-2S filters, but can't do non *-2S filters.  The setting I use to upsample both PCM and DSD files to DSD512 is on the bottom, but not necessary have to have CUDA offload engaged.

 

Are you having sCLK-EX board installed inside of your SU-1 (I assume you are using I2S out from SU-1) or externally connected?

 

Other than not using CUDA, I had my settings exactly like that.  Is there anything else I need to do?  In the main interface do you have everything set to auto, or do you manually set to SDM?  For some reason HQPlayer keeps playing PCM as PCM.  Anything to set in the Holo ASIO control panel?  It looks like that's just buffer settings.

 

I don't have an SU-1.  I was considering it if I can master clock it.  Buying another sCLK would be one way, but an expensive one.  Also, SoTM can't reclock i2s so only the USB in would get the benefit.

[elan120]

2 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

 

Other than not using CUDA, I had my settings exactly like that.  Is there anything else I need to do?  In the main interface do you have everything set to auto, or do you manually set to SDM?  For some reason HQPlayer keeps playing PCM as PCM.  Anything to set in the Holo ASIO control panel?  It looks like that's just buffer settings.

 

I don't have an SU-1.  I was considering it if I can master clock it.  Buying another sCLK would be one way, but an expensive one.  Also, SoTM can't reclock i2s so only the USB in would get the benefit.

On the main interface, I set to SDM...see below:

 

Nothing else to set in Holo ASIO control panel, other than I set the Buffer Size to minimum, but will work just fine with default setting.

 

What does it mean by SOtM can't reclock I2S?

[Johnseye]

4 minutes ago, elan120 said:

On the main interface, I set to SDM...see below:

 

Nothing else to set in Holo ASIO control panel, other than I set the Buffer Size to minimum, but will work just fine with default setting.

 

What does it mean by SOtM can't reclock I2S?

 

Thanks for the screenshots.  This helps.

 

Lee at SOtM said he can't, or maybe shouldn't use the sCLK for i2S.  I don't know if that's because it's not necessary or there is some incompatibility.